Tamera Mowry-Houlsey’s husband, Adam Housley, came under fire on social media for his comments on the proposed changes to the SNAP program under President Donald Trump’s administration.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the newly confirmed Health and Human Services secretary who has been pushing the slogan “Make America Healthy Again,” called for the government to stop SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) from being used to pay for “soda or processed food,” according to the Associated Press.
In a recent interview with Fox News, Kennedy told Laura Ingraham that the nearly $113 billion government program that benefits about 42 million Americans “shouldn’t be subsidizing people to eat poison.”
On Tuesday, Housley, 53, weighed in on the matter on his X account, writing, “As a kid who grew up in neighborhood grocery stores since I was 5, I can’t tell you how many times I saw people come in and buy crap food for their kids with food stamps, then open the wallet and use cash for liquor, beer, wine and cigarettes.”
He continued, “Then there were those who would repeatedly buy a lemon or lime, get the change, walk out the door throw them away and do it again. Until they had enough change to buy cigarettes or alcohol. As a kid it pissed me off because there are some people who could really use the help and then there are these others working the system.”
In a separate tweet, the former Fox News reporter, who grew up in Napa, California, explained that his parents “used every dime they had” to open a small grocery store and got baseball cards as payment “for picking up cigarette butts in the planters.” He said that later, his family planted a vineyard and worked at both simultaneously.
Housley’s comments sparked backlash, with his critics accusing him of being judgmental, out of touch, and commenting on issues he’s not directly impacted by.
Housley defended his position across a number of tweets, reiterating that his initial tweet was talking about “how fraud hurt[s] people who truly need” government assistance.
“Clearly I was falsely targeted and never had anything to say about SNAP,” Housley wrote in a new post on Wednesday. “Thankfully social media fact checkers are calling it out. Last comment on this and glad there’s a net in place to stop lies and deceit.”
Changes to SNAP would require congressional approval, as the program is managed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and administered at the state level.
Here are some of the reactions to Housley’s comments and other tweets about the proposed changes to the SNAP program.